A next-generation package manager called Nix provides a simple distribution-independent method for deploying a binary or source package on different flavours of Linux, including Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE, Fedora, and Red Hat. Even better, Nix does not interfere with existing package managers. Unlike existing package managers, Nix allows different versions of software to live side by side, and permits sane rollbacks of software upgrades.

"We are heading to the year 2010, and Linux is still suffering of this basic problem. sad, really really sad."

I find NO facts to back this statement up, if a customer is paying for RHEL entitlements and I had a package 1 time in a new upgrade from RHEL5.1 to RHEL5.2 in the channel and it was fixed in the morning. ***Take in consideration it was added to the channel in RHN that day! I hardly think this is an issue any longer. Even so with RHEL Support open a ticket, post the info and it is fixed case closed. People are human, they make mistakes so I would say they stay on top of them a lot better than the fallacies of a Windows OS. You can actually see what makes the OS tick and make changes to it unlike the closed source counter parts.

So I say being Open Source is a lot more than complaining about something with the current distro's it is NOT an issue...

Meanwhile, yum/apt/yast are awesome package installers along with the other utilities from other distro's I give them kudos for keeping something very complex down to a level where users can work with it.